Not
possessing a television set myself, it was only just now that was
I able to listen to the recording, hosted on the Internet, of a conversation
which took place some days ago between a terrorist holed up at Nariman
House in Mumbai and calling himself ‘Imran Babar’ and
reporters of the India TV channel. (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=QhO6rynb1C8).

It is plainly
evident from the conversation that the terrorist was a Pakistani,
most likely a Punjabi. This obvious from his accent and the sort of
Urdu he speaks. One can easily make out that he had been carefully
tutored by his mentors who masterminded the deadly terror assault
on Mumbai to intersperse his hate-driven harangue with some Hindi
words (shanti, parivar etc.) and to use Urdu words in the typical
Hindi way (jabardasti, instead of zabardasti, etc.) so as to give
the misleading impression that he and the other terrorists with him
were Indian Muslims, not Pakistanis. The terrorists claimed to belong
to the ‘Deccan’, in India, but it is obvious that this
was not at all the case. There can be no doubt that these Pakistani
terrorists were trained to lie that they were Indian Muslims who were
allegedly resorting to terror in revenge for the atrocities committed
on Muslims in India.

Why the
Pakistan-based terror outfit behind the attacks would do this needs
no explanation. The aim of the attacks was probably to destabilise
India, fuel Hindu-Muslim violence, instigate Muslims to take to terror
in response to attacks by Hindus and then drown India in flames. This,
indeed, is precisely what several Pakistan-based self-styled Islamist
groups have been consistently plotting to do for decades, although,
mercifully, by and large, the Indian Muslims have refused to fall
into their trap. It is to the credit of the Indian Muslims that, barring
some stray exceptions, they have consistently opposed all forms of
terror, including that committed in the name of Islam, despite the
growing menace of Hindutva-driven fascist terror across India, sometimes
abetted by the state, of which they are the principal and worst-hit
victims.

The Lashkar-e
Tayyeba has never made any bones about its dastardly plans of destabilisng
and destroying India. It has gone to the ridiculous extent of claiming
that it will not rest till the ‘Islamic’ flag is hoisted
atop the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi and till India is absorbed
into what it calls in its lunacy ‘Greater Pakistan’. In
order to gain theological legitimacy for its deadly project it even
claims that the Prophet Muhammad is said to have declared that Muslims
who participate in a war with India would be saved from the fires
of hell. There can be no doubt that this sort of horrendous misuse
and deliberate distortion of Islam by the Lashkar has played a major
role in attracting vast numbers of would-be terrorists in Pakistan
to its fold who are fed with the poisonous propaganda that by participating
in what it calls a holy war against India they would win a ticket
to heaven.

The Pakistani
state, it must be noted, has taken no action whatsoever against this
heinous propaganda, and elements of the ISI are said to be in cahoots
with the Lashkar and other such hate-driven self-styled Islamist groups
in the country. In the wake of the Mumbai attacks, and when asked
what action Pakistan had taken against the Lashkar, the Pakistani
President hurriedly shrugged off the question by claiming that the
Lashkar had been ‘banned’. If that is indeed the case—which
it is obviously not—then how does Mr. Zardari explain the fact
that, as the Lashkar’s official Urdu website itself announces,
on the 29th of November the Lashkar’s supremo Hafiz Muhammad
Saeed addressed what it termed a ‘mammoth’ convention
at ‘New Saeedabad’ (a locality named after him?), organized
by the Sindh unit of the Markaz Dawat ul-Irshad (the ‘religious’
and political wing of the Lashkar). It was held, of all places, in
the premises of the local Government Degree College. The Lashkar’s
website is replete with news about the whirlwind tours of Saeed and
his cronies across the country, delivering rabble-rousing speeches,
thundering against India and non-Muslims in general. And the outfit,
Mr. Zardari wants us to believe, is ‘banned’.

Having
been writing on Indian Muslim issues for years now, I can say with
some confidence that the general Indian Muslim is completely fed up
and fiercely opposed to the gross misuse of Islam by the Pakistani
state and Pakistan-based self-styled Islamist outfits. Deep down inside,
most of them lament the very creation of Pakistan, based on the discredited
‘two nation’ theory, for it has left them permanently
helpless in the face of Hindutva aggression. They know full well that,
despite its bombastic claims, Pakistan is far being from the ‘Islamic
state’ it claims to be—with its problems of poverty, illiteracy,
mounting inequalities, endemic violence, and lawlessness, its corrupt
American puppet politicians who have reduced Islam to a plaything
to be employed for their own purposes, and so on. The general Indian
Muslim’s undisguised disgust of the terror in the name of Islam
that groups like the Lashkar are seeking to spearhead is amply evident
in the news that is pouring in of Muslims across the country roundly
denouncing the Mumbai attacks and even insisting that the dreaded
terrorists not be allowed to be buried on Indian soil.

India’s
Muslims need to be seen as a potential asset, rather than a liability,
in the struggle against terrorism. Scores of Indian ulema or Islamic
clerics are now openly castigating all forms of terror, organizing
mass rallies and even issuing fatwas to get the message across. The
Indian state and civil society urgently needs to realize that hounding
the Indian Muslims, instead of seeking to listen to their voices and
concerns and genuinely dialoguing with them, can only play into the
hands of outfits of groups like the Lashkar. The fact that Hindutva
terror and Islamist terror only feed on each other must also be urgently
acknowledged. Our very future as a country crucially depends on all
communities, particularly Hindus and Muslims, presenting a joint front
to work together for peace and security. That would be a fitting reply
to both Hindutva and radical Islamist forces, whose very existence
is based on the frighteningly Manichaean notion of perpetual antagonism
between Hindus and Muslims.